A Question Answered? – A Sound of Arendelle Story
by H20loo
Summary: The littlest Schrader, Maggie, wants a little sister, so her mother Anna tells her and her other children how Maggie may (or may not) have come to be. Follow-up to the Sound of Arendelle, and contains spoilers about the identity of Maggie's father.


A/N: When I finished The Sound of Arendelle, the most popular question I had from reviewers was how baby Maggie came to be or who was her father. I really did want to leave it to the reader, but then I came up with this. If you don't want to know, skip the last paragraph of the story. ;)

A Question Answered? – A Sound of Arendelle Story

"For the last time, Maggie, I don't want to play with you!" Gretl yelled, slamming the door to the nursery as she stomped out, alerting her mother to the fact that her youngest children were fighting. Anna listened carefully, and when soft sniffles could be heard, she put down the pencil and guitar she was using to compose and slipped out of the music room.

"Maggie?" Anna questioned gently. "Where are you, Ladybug?" No answer came, so Anna headed towards the sound of the sniffling. Her four-year old doppelganger with piercing blue eyes was found just inside the parlor, crying to herself softly behind the oversized couch. "Aw 'Bug, come here," her mother encouraged sympathetically, and Maggie dragged herself off the floor and came over to her mother. Anna picked her up without a word, and she took them both over to the couch for a snuggle.

Maggie cried into her shoulder for a few moments, but at last the tears slowed, and she looked up at Anna. "Why doesn't Gretl want to play with me anymore, Mama? We used to be best buddies, but now we're not," she said tearfully.

"Well, sweetie, Gretl is older than you, and her interests are starting to change," Anna replied truthfully. "She's almost eleven, and sometimes, when people get to that age, they start wanting to be more like an adult."

"But who am I going to play with, Mama?" Maggie asked.

"Well, you still have your Mother and me; we will always play with you," Anna offered. "You also have your friends, and next year you get to go to school. There will be a lot of new people to play with there."

"But sometimes you are busy. And Lotte and Kristina aren't here all the time. And I don't want to wait a year for more friends," Maggie stated, petulantly refuting Anna's points one by one, reminding the former nun so much of her admiral wife that Anna had to bite back a chuckle.

"Then what do you suggest, Ladybug?" Anna inquired with amusement.

Maggie thought for a bit, until the perfect answer came to her. "You and Muvver could have another baby so that I could have a little sister!" she announced proudly. Since all of the other children called Elsa "Mother", Maggie had tried to copy them since she was very young. "Muvver" had been that attempt, and it had charmed Anna and Elsa so completely that the nickname had stuck even when Maggie's speech skills had improved.

Anna smiled. It _was_ a good idea, and one that she had been thinking of a lot lately. However, there were certain…complications to her getting pregnant, and she told her daughter that. "That's a pretty good idea, 'Bug," she answered, "but unfortunately it's not just as easy as me and you wanting a new sister for you. You were a very special gift, and I'm not sure if your Mother and I could ask for it again."

Maggie pouted, but then she looked up at Anna with a thoughtful expression. "Is it because I don't have a Papa?" she asked.

"Wait, what?" Anna questioned, wondering where that statement had come from.

"All of my brothers and sisters have a Papa; his name was Georg," Maggie said. "But I don't have a Papa. Is that why I can't have a little sister?"

"I never said you _couldn't_ have a little sister," Anna corrected gently. "I just said it would be more _difficult_ for you to have a little sister."

"Oh," Maggie answered. "Why? Why would it be more difficult, Mama?" she asked.

"Well, for one, if I had another baby, it might be a little _brother_ ," Anna teased, and Maggie's face scrunched up in childish disgust. Anna chuckled and continued. "And you're right; you don't have a Papa, and when there are two Mamas, it's not as easy as when there is a Mama and a Papa involved. But, it can be done, and that's why your Mother and I were blessed with you," Anna finished.

"Yes, so very blessed," Elsa agreed from the doorway where she had been listening, surprising both of her girls on the couch.

"Muvver!" Maggie shouted with excitement, clambering off Anna's lap and running to her Mother. Elsa laughed, bent down and swung her up for a hug, careful not to poke her youngest with any of the adornments of her Admiral's uniform with her embrace.

After a brief moment to appreciate the wonder that was Elsa in her uniform, Anna followed Maggie off the couch with a smile. Elsa smiled in return, and they shared a brief kiss when Anna stepped up. "Welcome back, sweetheart," Anna murmured joyfully. "How was your military summit in Corona?"

"Dreadfully dull," Elsa replied, giving Maggie a kiss as she set the little girl down. "All kinds of chatter about things that may or may not be important, and all the while, it is keeping me from my family. I still don't really know how Nana convinced me to take this position," she finished with a sigh. She bent down to talk to Maggie. "Maggie, darling, could you please tell your brother and sisters that I am home? I would like to see them as well," she requested.

"Sure, Muvver!" Maggie said enthusiastically before she ran out of the room at full speed.

Elsa smiled after her before snagging Anna's arm and bringing her into a tight embrace. "Now that we have a few moments of privacy, I can say hello properly," she purred, bending her head and capturing her wife's lips.

Anna sighed with happiness, and she ardently returned the kiss. Even after five years, Elsa could still turn her into a puddle of goo with a sharp uniform and a thorough kiss. "I'm glad that you are home, Elsa," Anna murmured when they separated slightly. "I've missed you."

"And I you, my love," Elsa replied before she heard the cadence of six pairs of feet coming down the hall. With a smile she released Anna and turned to the doorway, and her children came bounding in, save the two oldest who had followed their mother into the Navy. They surrounded her with hugs, and she hugged them back tightly. After their welcome, the children settled themselves in the parlor, and Elsa excused herself to change out of her uniform. A few minutes later, she came back more casually dressed in black slacks and a short-sleeved blue blouse. "So what has my talented family been doing while I was gone?" she asked.

Louisa got the conversation going by sharing how she was preparing for university in the fall by choosing between several majors. Dance and music were among them, but so were economics and psychology, and Louisa was still trying to choose. Kurt told about his latest exploits on the football pitch, and Brigitta mentioned that she had finished the latest chapter in the book she was writing. Marta and Gretl spoke of their friends and of learning new songs with their Mama, and Anna said that she was making progress with her latest composition. When they were done, only one was left, and Elsa looked at Maggie. "So what have you been up to, my little one?" she asked. "What were you and your Mama talking about when I came in?"

"I want a little sister," Maggie stated without preamble. The other children chuckled, but her face was dead serious, so Elsa kept her face the same.

"I see," she said seriously. "And what prompted this request?"

"Gretl was mean to me, and I wanted someone else to play with," Maggie answered bluntly, causing Gretl to look embarrassed.

Elsa considered this. "And what did your Mama say?" she asked.

"That it was more hard to have a baby with two Mamas, and that I was a special gift," Maggie answered. "But she didn't say no!" she added quickly, just to make sure her mother knew that.

Elsa looked at Anna with a raised eyebrow, and Anna blushed. "I didn't exactly say yes, either," she said in defensive embarrassment.

Elsa chuckled at that. She had known of Anna's desire to have another child; Anna had never been good at hiding her thoughts or emotions, and Elsa could read her eyes every time she saw an infant or toddler. Elsa was still hesitant, though; she had her reservations about adding yet another Schrader to their already-large brood. But, she was willing to talk about it, and now she could see that the conversation with Anna was going to happen sooner than she had anticipated. It just didn't need to happen in front of all the children, so Elsa decided to redirect the conversation. "Speaking of making babies, would you like to know the story of how Maggie came to be?" she asked. Her older children's faces contracted in disgust. They had all been given the lecture about human reproduction, and none of them wanted to repeat it. Elsa read their faces and rolled her eyes. "It's not _that_ conversation," she huffed. "Like your Mama mentioned, Maggie came into being differently than most."

"Didn't you just ask Uncle Jack?" Brigitta inquired. Uncle Jack looked a great deal like Mother, and he had the Schrader blue eyes that Maggie had inherited, so that idea had been Brigitta's hypothesis ever since Maggie had been born.

"Well, your Uncle Jack has always been very close to us, and if we needed to ask someone, it would have been him," Anna confirmed, and Brigitta smiled at her own cleverness. "But, remember, we are in _Arendelle_ ," Anna said with a mischievous emphasis, "land of Snow Queens and Trolls. Maybe Maggie _wasn't_ a gift from your Uncle Jack." The children looked skeptical, but Elsa smiled. Anna was revving up to launch into one of her famous tales, and Elsa secretly loved them. So did all the children, even if some were getting a bit old to admit it.

"Then tell us, Mama," Brigitta encouraged with an odd mix of anticipation and teenage sass coloring her tone. "Tell us how it _wasn't_ Uncle Jack."

"Well, it all starts with the first Snow Queen of Arendelle," Anna began. "Her name was…"

"Elsa!" Maggie piped up exuberantly, snuggling into her Mama's lap.

"That's right it; it was," Anna congratulated her. "That's who your Mother was named after. Anyway, when she was little, she didn't know how to control her snow powers, and this scared her Mama and Papa, the king and queen of Arendelle. They were afraid people would be mean to Elsa if they knew about her powers, so they closed the gates, keeping Elsa away from the people. When Elsa grew up, though, the King and Queen were lost at sea, and Elsa had to become queen. Having been away from people so long, Elsa was terribly frightened, but she found the queen within her, and she opened the gates for her coronation. That turned out to be the best thing she ever did."

"Why?" Marta asked, getting into the story in spite of herself.

"Because one of the guests at her coronation was the beautiful daughter of a duke, the same girl that had been Elsa's best friend as a child, but whom she had been forced to stop seeing when the gates were closed," Anna answered. "When they saw each other again, it was love at first sight, and they spent the rest of the night reacquainting themselves and falling even more in love. Towards the end of the night, though, a minor prince from the Southern Isles decided that the young noblewoman was monopolizing too much of Queen Elsa's time, and he tried to come between them. That turned out to be a mistake, because almost without thinking, Elsa surrounded him with sharp, deadly ice so that he would stay away from her love, and her lifelong secret was out."

"It was okay, though, right Mama?" Gretl asked anxiously. "The people still loved her anyway?"

"Not all of them," Anna replied truthfully. "Some called her a monster, and others called her a witch. She was about to run, but her childhood friend, the woman who had stolen her heart that night, captured her hand and stood by her side. Even with all of the fear and confusion around them, her love never wavered, and in that love, Elsa found her salvation, the piece she had been missing. She finally figured out how her powers could be controlled, and with a wave of her hands, the ice disappeared. When the ice was gone, the people's fear faded with it, and they embraced Elsa as their queen."

Most of her audience looked pleased, but Louisa looked annoyed. "And how does any of that have anything to do with how we got Maggie?" she asked in exasperation.

"Patience, Louisa, I was getting to that," Anna replied. "Even though Elsa knew that she wanted to marry her love straightaway, she did the proper thing and began courting her instead, giving them opportunity to get to know one another before they were married. Their love didn't wane but only grew stronger, and within months, Queen Elsa called a meeting of her advisors to tell them of her plans: she was going to ask her love to marry her. To her heartbreak and anger, her advisors said no."

"Why?" Kurt asked, angered for his ancestor's sake.

"The Queen was an only child, and if she married another woman, there would be no heir to the throne of Arendelle," Anna explained. "Medical science was not as far advanced as it is today, and they only knew children required a mother and father, not _why_ they needed a mother and father. Since either the Queen or her bride would have to break their wedding vows to produce an heir, the marriage could not be permitted."

"But she was _Queen_!" Brigitta said in frustrated outrage. "She could overrule her advisors."

"She could," Anna agreed, "but Elsa was a good queen who also wanted to do what was best for Arendelle. She also wanted her love, though, and for weeks, she agonized over the decision. Her powers responded in kind, and Arendelle was faced with the worst winter it had seen in years. Finally, the royal ice master, a kind man who was friends with both the queen and her love, offered her a solution: he would take her to meet his adoptive family who just so happened to be the mythical trolls that lived in the woods outside of Arendelle. They were good and kind, just as he was, and they worked their magic in the pursuit of love. If anyone could help the young queen, it would be them."

"And did they help her?" Maggie asked anxiously.

"They did," Anna said triumphantly. "They knew of the Queen's love, and of her distress, so they had been working on a special spell that, when read aloud, would take a small part of two people and join those parts together to make a baby. The only requirement was that the people had to be each other's True Love. They had told their Ice Master son to bring the Queen when the spell was ready, and when he finally convinced her to visit, they presented her with the scroll. Now confident that she and her love would be able to produce an heir for Arendelle, she defied her advisors the next day and put plans in motion to marry. The wedding was grand, and even today, you can find paintings of it in your GeeGee's palace. After they were married, Elsa invoked the spell, and as the trolls promised, a royal heir, a girl, was born within the year, looking so much like both of her mothers that no one ever questioned her parentage."

"You're not saying that Maggie is here because of some hundreds-of-years'-old troll spell are you?" Brigitta asked with teenage cynicism.

"Perhaps I am," Anna challenged her teenage daughter with a smile. "Perhaps the kings and queens of Arendelle, your GeeGee included, have kept the scroll safe all these years so that True Love will always find a way. Or, perhaps, as you say, your Uncle Jack gave us an extraordinary gift. Either way, we have Maggie, so I leave it up to you to decide." Brigitta looked at her Mama, but Anna's happy, playful face revealed nothing. She looked at her brother and sisters, but they shrugged, not having an answer either. She looked like she wanted to say more, but at that moment, Frau Schmidt called everyone to dinner, so all of the children filed out, debating their Mama's story as they went.

"You know, you really shouldn't fill our children's heads with such fantastical tales, my love," Elsa chided gently, sliding her hands around Anna's waist from behind as they watched the children go.

"I was just giving them something to ponder, Sweetheart," Anna countered with a smile, snuggling back into Elsa.

"But really," Elsa scoffed, nuzzling Anna's neck and giving her a soft kiss. "Such a tale. As if I would let Jack or any part of Jack anywhere near you," she whispered in a growl, possessively tightening her arms around her wife.

Anna chuckled. "No, you wouldn't," she agreed, turning slightly to give her wife a kiss.


End file.
